The Values In The Color Of Water By Ruth Mcbride

The Color of Water

Ruth McBride has a system of values and ethics that she teachers to her children through her experiences and other situations. There are a lot of categorizable values she teaches but the main ones include her views on education, religion, and race. Where education is concerned Ruth constantly pushes her kids to academic excellence. Ruth also influenced how her children thought and acted when faced with different racial situations that they are placed in. Ruth taught her children various values that mainly had positive effects and impacted their lives. The first area of the Ruth’s values that she passed onto the children was in education. It is apparent that Ruth has a strong belief in the education system because she is

She helped him get ready for school and then walked him out to the bus. This became a prominent memory for James (McBride 11). This experience kicked off the rest of his academic life. Another lasting effect that this experience had on James is that it provided alone time with his mother. This alone time was special to James and it made him realize that his mother was not like those of his classmates. This was the first time in James's life that he noticed the difference in his mother’s skin color. Another area where we see the importance of education is when Helen started to become a hippie and claimed that the white man’s education was not for her. Ruth went to everyone she could to try and get help for Helen. Ruth even enrolled Helen in two other schools but eventually Helen quit both of them and continued her rebellious stage (McBride 72). This ordeal makes it pretty evident that Ruth values education to a high degree and pushed for her kids to do well in school. Helen eventually became a nurse so Ruth’s push for education must have had a significant impact on Helen’s academic value. Ruth exhibits her Jewish

Ruth felt fulfilment in her children’s relationship with God. Ruth would make her kids play their instruments or recite a bible verse (McBride 53). James ended up going to Oberlin College and playing the saxophone. Playing instruments in church gatherings could have played a role in influencing him to attend the liberal arts college and continue playing instruments. Another religious value that Ruth passed onto James was that she would always talk about Jewish people as Jews. Ruth would not associate the Jewish religion with white people so it made her children think that they were very different. James stated that he and his siblings took this feeling into adulthood (McBride 87). This affected him in a couple good ways including a better understanding of the Jewish people and their relationships with blacks. James said that he understood the relationship to the bone as an adult (McBride 87). These religious values also have some ties with the racial problem referenced in the